Goodbye to All This

Let's face it.  I've lost interest in this Blog.

I started this process a little over a year ago in order to promote my fundraising workshop.  It was my short term hope that my workshop would put some extra cash in my pocket.  It was my longer term dream that I would build an international fundraising training empire and amass the kind of wealth that allows you to drive Cadillac convertibles and wear flagrantly false toupes.  (Even if you have a full head of hair.)

I dared to dream these dreams because of the reportedly dizzying power of social media to transform one's idea into a global phenomenon overnight.

Needless to say, none of it came true.  The workshop lost money, I didn't build an empire, and I never seemed to gather much of a following for my Blog.  A few times it got picked up by other blogs or email newsletters with significant followings, including the excellent You've Cott Mail, and on those days my readership would spike into the triple digits.

Anyway, I've learned two primary lessons along the way which I'd like to share with anyone who happens to read this:

1) Social media is pretty hard.  The competition is enormous and it's tough to rise above the noise.  Like everything else in life, you have to grind away (or get very lucky) to have an impact.
2) There are endless lessons to learn in fundraising -- I feel that I'm forever reaching deeper levels of understanding.  But after a while, in my opinion, the kinds of things people like me write about fundraising on blogs start to feel worn out.

I had been toying with the idea of relaunching this effort.  But just recently I got a great, exciting, challenging new job: I'm going to be the Vice President of Development at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.  That will require my full attention, and so this seems like the right time to sign off.

I'm going to unplug the blog (can one do that?) and my Website.  But feel free to drop me a line if you want to get in touch or have any questions.

Thanks for reading.

Best,

Matt